Shorts on Walls Round-Up

I didnt make it to the Shorts on Walls event (run by Animation Forum) on Monday 28th April but i wish i had, it looked like a roaring sucess. Well done AFWM!

You can look at the full program on their website.

 

7″ Cinema has a new website

Find out all you need to know about 7″ Cinema, Flatpack Festival and other exciting projects going on Brum side on the new website / blog www.7inch.org.uk

First post in a while….

Over the next few months the Flip Team will be blogging Animation news and events from different sources, as well as any news we might have about the Flip 08.
The Flip dates are now confirmed as 6th - 8th November 08 so put it in your diary!  

 One event coming up is Shorts on Walls from Animation Forum WM, here is all the information below:

Schmooze, screen and shout about your animated shorts with fellow animators after-work as Animation Forum WM crashes headlong into The Rainbow this April.
6.30pm-8.30pm
Monday 28th April 2008
The Rainbow, Digbeth, Birmingham, B12 0LD

See you there!

 Kate from Flip

Flip Winners

This year’s competition included a student award and a prize for best short film, both categories generously sponsored by Toon Boom. Ava Publishing also kindly donated a copy of Paul Wells’ book on script writing for animation, while Focal Press have promised a copy of Barry Purves’ upcoming publication, ‘Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Performance’. The award for best short went to Lizzy Hobbs for her wonderful ink on tile film, The Old, Old, Very Old Man, www.spellboundanimation.co.ukThe student competition involved a nail biting moment when we had to introduce a fourth judge to decide between, Paul O’Flanagan’s Beauty Now, (http://pauloflanaganartblog.blogspot.com/), and Julian Kok’s Mimos and the Egg, http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=umN7g2xjs5Q. Both were deemed to be extremely high quality and indeed the general consensus is that student work has improved dramatically over the past 4 years that the competition has been running. The casting vote went to Paul, but the jury agreed to give a special mention award to Julian’s film

Peter

content rich sites

Mick Foley from Sumo Dojo Productions has been compiling a list of content rich sites for distributing and showcasing short films and animations. He kindly forwarded me a copy of the latest list to post on the blog.

List of content rich animation sites (this is not a complete list as new sites are added each week) There are three types of content rich sites;1)                  Upload yourself – no moderation (youtube)2)                  Upload to a moderator for inclusion on site (weebls-stuff)3)                  Upload to a company (eg; Atom Films) for distribution  http://www.animateonline.org/  Submission of project ideas via Channel 4)

www.sumo.tv

http://www.ifilm.com/ (Spike) Submission via moderator http://www.gonganime.com/  Submit completed work – needs to be finished work

http://www.atomfilms.com/home.jsp Company upload for distribution

http://www.flurl.com  Submit completed work to moderator

http://www.milkandcookies.com  Submit completed work to moderator

http://www.lulu.tv Submit completed work to moderator – and get paid!!!!

http://www.metacafe.com/  Submit completed work to moderator

http://www.digg.com/  Submit completed work to moderator

http://www.collegehumor.com/ (College kids)

http://www.tensecondfilms.com Submit projects to moderator (guess what length)

http://www.specialten.tv/ (Lots of music videos and short films)

http://video.stumbleupon.com  Submit completed work to moderator

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/filmnetwork/Filmsubmit Submit films to BBC

http://www.dailymotion.com/Razorbuzz/Animacion (Spanish video uploading site)

http://one.revver.com  Submit completed work to moderator / shared income

http://llamamelola.com/ (spanish blog site where you can publish work and comments)

http://www.aniboom.com  Create your own movie on-site

http://www.stubes.net/ (Series of Tubes Hungarian video portal)

http://video.google.com/  Submit completed work to moderator

http://my.break.com/ (College kids)

http://www.glumbert.com/ Submit completed work to moderator

http://www.submarinechannel.com/titlesequences/video.jsp?video=22211 (For title sequences)

http://www.b3ta.com/  Submit completed work to moderator http://www.weebls-stuff.com Submit completed work to moderator Social networking sites: (some of these sites accept uploaded videos to profile through a moderator)MySpace
Hi5
Frienster
Xanga
FreeWebs
Facebook Linkedin
Bebo
Wayne Etc.,etc

Plus Online TV sites

Joost
Juice
Democracy (Lime)etc.,

Less than a week till Flip!

That’s right, less than a week till Flip! Here are the events im looking forward to especially:
Motor Functions Private View - Thursday 1st Nov 6pm (all welcome).
An exhibition of Kinetic sculpture by artist Steve Hutton, a great way of looking an animation differently.

Animation in the YouTube Generation - Friday 2nd November 3.30 - 6.00pm
This is a dream of an event for a self confessed YouTube geek like myself! Expect debate a plenty.

Trunk: Music - Friday 9.00 - 10.30pm
Music videos are finally getting the recognition they deserve from festivals in the last few years, so this will be a great chance to pop into the cinema with a beer (free beer i might add - thanks CobraVision!)  and catch the work of Trunk.

Stop Motion Forever - Saturday 12.30 - 4.15pm Saturday 
I have grown up in the ‘digital age’ with CG films like Toy Story i am still really attracted to the craft of stop motion animation. I am looking forward to hearing about the past and more importantly the future of stop motion. An event about Stop motion couldn’t be more relevant at this time, with many animation fans becoming more interested in stop motion than CG. A great example of this is the new Sony Bravia advert, which is possibly the most large scale stop motion project ever created (do let me know if this isn’t correct though!). The project and more importantly the budget proves that Stop Motion is here to stay. Here is the making of the Bravia advert:

See you at Flip!
Kate

YouTube update

I’m pleased to announce Mick Foley from Sumo Dojo productions is joining the panel on 2 Nov to discuss animation in the YouTube generation. Mick is becoming a regular at Flip and brings a wealth of experience and knowledge about old and new media platforms.  His production company embraces the ‘hub’ ethos, I suppose some might call it a collective, but it’s something I see more of as a businesses model for animation and media production. It has the flexibility of scale (people can work as freelancers on there own or as a group on bigger projects), and it means you are linked into a ready made supply chain. It also means you can identify and bring on new talent, which is the lifeblood of the industry. This might be heavy stuff to discuss on a festival blog, but since Flip emerged out of a business support ethos, it’s actually very relevant. Currently, the West Midlands animation and media scene doesn’t tend to think in terms of hubs and collectives. They function more as closed individual units. On a slightly connected note, Chris Randall, one of the student competition judges, commented at the press launch last week that Flip’s main value was that it gave him the opportunity to view upcoming talent.  Chris’ company, Second Home Productions, is a fairly recent venture and it very much embraces new talent and the collective ethos, and indeed I know Chris has already contacted some of this year’s animation graduates to bring them into the fold. I think it will be interesting to see how he develops and to see whether the region’s media does begin to embrace the hub ethos and indeed whether Flip can be a catalyst in helping to create that model. I’d welcome comments

Peter

Flip Press Launch

The Flip Festival press launch was held yesterday at Cineworld in Birmingham, and it was a great success. Many thanks to Screen WM and Animation Forum for all the hard work and support, as well as the panellists and all who attended. It was a celebratory day for animation in the West Midlands, and a chance to put faces to names for a lot of the attendees. The Animation Forum showreel was screened which really captured how vibrant and diverse the work is that is coming from the region. I especially enjoyed seeing ‘The Animal Book’ (Second Home Productions) for a second time since the Digital Shorts screening at Light House, it is such a beautiful and well crafted film which is deservedly receiving worldwide recognition at festivals.
You can read what the press have to say about the launch at Created in Birmingham, and The Birmingham Post.

Here is the Animation showreel.

See you at Flip! Kate

all change again

I’m disappointed to say that Cosgrove Hall (Brian and Mark) have pulled out - hours before I went on holiday - but thrilled to say that Barry Purves has joined the line up, hooray! This past couple of weeks have been a bit of a rollercoaster festival-organising-wise: we have a press launch coming up on the 9 October, which is jointly organised between me, Screen WM and the West Midlands Animation Forum, that’s going to be worth all the effort (I keep telling myself). I’ll let you knowPeter

I’m thrilled to write that Cosgrove Hall have confirmed for the Saturday evening finale, many thanks to BAFTA for helping to organise this. Cosgrove Hall is a bit of an institution and has excited and entertained a couple of generations of young people and are continuing this process with my 2 year old who is a bit obsessed with Fifi and the Flowertots. Most people when pressed about Cosgrove Hall, will come back excitedly with kids classics such as Danger Mouse, or Count Duckula, or Jamie and the Magic Torch, etc - they do have a huge back catalogue. But that catalogue also includes some more ‘grown’ up award winning stop motion, such as Cinderella or The Pied Piper of Hamelin. Hopefully we will feature some of this work as well.Peter